Xbox streaming music for iPhones, Android

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Photo courtesy: Microsoft

SEATTLE — Microsoft’s new Xbox Music service is now available on Android and iOS devices with a monthly subscription. Xbox Music is a cloud-based service that allows users to stream music over different devices, even those not running on Windows.

Xbox Music also now offers free streaming of its 30 million-song library on the web, putting it in direct competition with popular music streaming service Spotify. Customers willing to pay a $9.99 monthly or $99.99 yearly subscription fee can also access their collections and playlists through mobile devices.

With the free, ad-supported Web version and the new apps, the company will try to reach more users by allowing access to music through a variety of connected devices. It’s the latest move in Xbox’s transition from primarily a multi-player gaming system to a full entertainment service.

“It’s really to fill out the number of places where a Microsoft customer may want to use their music,” said Scott Porter, Xbox’s principal program manager, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “It broadens out and completes the ubiquity that users expect from music.”